Kashmir by Sir Younghusband Francis Edward (paper ebook reader .txt) 📕

GATE OF THE OUTER WALL, HARI PARBAT FORT, SRINAGAR

But this reign seems to have been a mere oasis in the dreary record, and it was followed by a succession of weak reigns till 1532, when a direct conquest of the country by a foreign invader was effected. In that year Mirza Haider, with a following which formed part of the last great wave of Turkis (or Moghals) from the north, invaded Kashmir and held it for some years. Then followed one last short period, during which Kashmir became once more the scene of long-continued strife among the great feudal families, who set up and deposed their puppet kings in rapid succession, till finally, in 1586, Kashmir was incorporated in the dominions of the great Akbar, the contemporary of Elizabeth, and remained as a dependency of the Moghal emperors for nearly two centuries.

Akbar himself visited the country three times, made a land revenue settlement, and built the fort of Hari Parbat, which from its situation on an isolated hill, in a flat valley surrounded by mountains, bears some resemblance to the Potala at Lhasa. Akbar's successor, Jehangir, was devoted to Kashmir and he it was who built the stately pleasure gardens, the Shalimar and Nishat Baghs, where we can imagine that he and his wife, the famous Nurmahal, for whom he built the Taj at Agra, must have spent many a pleasant summer day.

The rule of the Moghals was fairly just and enlightened, and their laws and ordinances were excellent in spirit. Bernier, who visited Kashmir in the train of Aurungzebe, makes no allusion, as travellers of a subsequent date so frequently do, to the misery of the people, but, on the contrary, says of them that they are "celebrated for wit, and considered much more intelligent and ingenious than the Indians." "In poetry and the sciences," he continues, "they are not inferior to the Persians, and they are also very active and industrious." And he notes the "prodigious quantity of shawls which they manufacture." Kashmir was indeed, according to Bernier, "the terrestrial paradise of the Indies." "The whole kingdom wears the appearance," he says, "of a fertile and highly cultivated garden. Villages and hamlets are frequently seen through the luxuriant foliage. Meadows and vineyards, fields of rice, wheat, hemp, saffron, and many sorts of vegetables, among which are mingled trenches filled with water, rivulets, canals, and several small lakes, vary the enchanting scene. The whole ground is enamelled with our European flowers and plants, and covered with our apple, pear, plum, apricot, and walnut trees, all bearing fruit in great abundance."

All this and the absence of remarks on ruined towns and deserted villages, such as we shall hear so much of later on, implies prosperity. And of the governors of Kashmir under the Moghals, we read that many were enlightened, reduced taxation, and put down the oppression of petty officials. But as the Moghal Empire began to decay, the governors became more independent and high-handed. The Hindus were more oppressed. The officials fought among themselves, and Kashmir fell once more into wild disorder; and eventually, in 1750, came under the cruellest and worst rule of all—the rule of the Afghans, who to this day are of all the oppressive rulers in the world the most tyrannical. The period of Afghan rule was, says Lawrence, a time of "brutal tyranny, unrelieved by good works, chivalry, or honour." Men with interest were appointed as governors, who wrung as much money as they could out of the wretched people of the valley. It was said of them that they thought no more of cutting off heads than of plucking a flower. One used to tie up the Hindus, two and two, in grass sacks and sink them in the Dal Lake. The poll-tax on Hindus was revived, and many either fled the country, were killed, or converted to Islam.

At last the oppression became so unendurable that the Kashmiris turned with hope to Ranjit Singh, the powerful Sikh ruler of the Punjab, who, after an unsuccessful attempt, finally in 1819, accompanied by Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu, defeated the Afghan governor and annexed Kashmir to his dominions. It came then once again under Hindu rulers, though in the meantime nine-tenths of the population had been converted to Mohamedanism.

But the unfortunate country had still to suffer many ills. The Sikhs who succeeded the Afghans were not so barbarically cruel, but they were hard and rough masters. Moorcroft, who visited the country in 1824, says that "everywhere the people were in the most abject condition, exorbitantly taxed by the Sikh Government, and subjected to every kind of extortion and oppression by its officers ... not one-sixteenth of the cultivable surface is in cultivation, and the inhabitants, starving at home, are driven in great numbers to the plains of Hindustan." The cultivators were "in a condition of extreme wretchedness," and the Government, instead of taking only one-half of the produce on the threshing-floor, had now advanced its demands to three-quarters. Every shawl was taxed 26 per cent upon the estimated value, besides which there was an import duty on the wool with which they were manufactured, and a charge was made upon every shop or workman connected with the manufacture. Every trade was also taxed, "butchers, bakers, boatmen, vendors of fuel, public notaries, scavengers, prostitutes, all paid a sort of corporation tax, and even the Kotwal, or chief officer of justice, paid a large gratuity of thirty thousand rupees a year for his appointment, being left to reimburse himself as he might."